Israel

After saying goodbye to Rosena in Haiti and the American continent, I’ve had two weeks to relax in Amsterdam. I love that city and the friends I have there. After almost three years of travelling alone, with just a small trolley and a backpack as my companions, it felt like the right time to slowly start returning home. I’m almost halfway through this wonderful experience, which has given me so much. But I guess I miss having a home too. From now on I’ll be travelling through Africa, the Middle East and Europe, so the time difference, if there is any, is small. I’m working my way back to Amsterdam from now on, slowly but surely. I’ve decided to make short trips to Amsterdam a little more often and renting a place in Amsterdam again! It somehow feels good to have a place to call home.

Still there’s more then three years to go and some of the world's most intriguing places will pass in front of my lens. Fase III of Streets of the World has started. I’m in Jerusalem, Israel.

 

It seems that in one-way or the other, everybody in the world has a certain feeling or opinion about this little piece of land. Religions, people and politics are all around in the Old Town, the place I’ve chosen for my Streets photo. Where else then here, where so much has happened during the past millennia? And where so much will continue to happen. If one thing is for sure in this uncertain place, it’s that if any solution is possible for the problems here, it won’t be an easy one. Or perhaps there never will be one. When I was young my parents were quite clear about this conflict. They were pro-Israel and pro-American. So that was settled. Years later, as a journalist now, I have a very different view on what’s happening. Things have become somewhat clearer because I know more. But the result of that clearer view is that I see how extremely complex things really are. Not only between the Jews and Palestinians, but also between them and the Christians, whatever their backgrounds may be. It seems any and everybody has an understandable point of view. And the more I get into it, the more complicated it gets.

 

I’ll spend two weeks here including a visit to Ramallah. The question is if that should be where I take my Palestinian photo or in East-Jerusalem? Can West Bank be considered a Palestinian state, with Ramallah as it’s capital? And Gaza in the meantime as a separate one? Is Jerusalem even officially the capital of Israel? All questions which are central to the world’s most intense conflict. What will I decide if nobody can really figure it out?

 

One way or the other, it promises to be a very confronting but interesting time, during this leg of Streets of the World.